The International Training Workshop aims to bring together indigenous peoples from different geographical and biocultural regions of the world to engage in a contact learning zone environment, to learn about designing, planning, implementing and managing Agrobiodiversity Conservation Areas. The methodology has been designed to facilitate cross cultural learning, using the Potato Park as a model of a biocultural territory for agrobiodiversity conservation centered on the potato. The methodology will provide conceptual and practical tools for replication of the model in other biocultural territories.
 
Biocultural systems are understood through indigenous concepts as holistic, interconnected wholes that have developed through historical recursive processes of co-evolution between the socio-cultural system and the ecosystems they inhabit.  Working with such complex adaptive systems poses challenges for management, and requires appropriate tools and methods. The methodology for the workshop has been designed using a combination of local indigenous methodologies for holistic thinking, and cutting edge tools for managing complex systems.  Tools for facilitating a process of thinking about complex situations, defining complex systems and analyzing their components to plan interventions, developed by the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/), use a systems approach and diagramming to guide interventions into real world complex situations. These tools have been adapted to work with indigenous biocultural systems and build upon the Potato Park experience. 
 
Highly dynamic and participatory methodologies will facilitate learning through several avenues:
(i)     Experiential education in the Potato Park, where the reality of managing an agrobiodiversity will come to life. Local Park members will use south to south experience sharing to transmit their knowledge and experience in building and managing an agrobiodiversity conservation area.
(ii)   Conceptual thinking will be developed through the use of interactive multi media tools with the Potato Park example as a vehicle for translating theory into practice.
(iii) Systems diagramming methods will facilitate thinking about biocultural systems as complex systems, defining systems of interest and building intervention strategies based on analysis of the interactions within the system, feedback loops and leverage points.
 
For more information on the systems tools used please see:

Juan Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yanqui Salccamaygua Andean Biocultural Complex System Diagram
Managing Complexity: A Systems Approach
Systems diagramming